Do hand sanitizers work?
Friday, September 25th, 2009
By: Kerry Grens
kgrens@whyy.org
As flu season approaches, hand sanitzer pumps appear to be popping up everywhere, including offices, university buildings, and hospitals. WHYY's health and science reporter Kerry Grens looked into how well they work to keep hands germ-free.
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Hand sanitizers are those transparent gels that work by killing germs with alcohol.
Fekete: This has become our number one go-to hand hygiene product.
Thomas Fekete is chief of infectious disease at Temple University. He says sanitizers can destroy germs such as bacteria.
Fekete: And it turns out they're also effective against viruses, which of course we worry a lot about in the context of the seasonal flu and now of course the novel H1N1 swine type flu that we're looking at.
Washing with soap and water can also get rid of germs.
Fekete: Done properly they're both equally effective, but doing it properly with the soap and the towels is more cumbersome.
As far as antibacterial soap goes, the Mayo Clinic says it's no better than regular soap. But sanitizers do vary in effectiveness, especially if they don't contain enough alcohol. George Wohlreich is the director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. He says unlike antibiotics, there's no concern of overusing sanitizers and creating bacterial resistance – or superbugs.
Wohlreich: Since the alcohol works by lysing, splitting apart, the virus, there's no likelihood of a resistance, of a genetic resistance. It actually kills it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says alcohol-based sanitizers are a good substitute if soap and water aren't available, but washing still remains the gold standard.
More info:
CDC page on handwashing and using sanitizers
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One of the negatives regarding small bottles of hand sanitizer are that they lead to a lot of excess waste. Hand Sanitizer dispensers therefore are often preferred. For free dispensers try the Terraboost website.
Hand sanitizer dispensers are being reviewed at the hand sanitizer dispenser review website. See the top brands of dispensers and hand sanitizer reviews of Tazza, Purell, Clorox, Sani-Hands, Cleanwell, Hy-5 and more.
There’s actually nothing confusing about the issue when considering that more than 1000 schools throughout the US have prohibited alcohol-based hand sanitizer and are procuring only non-alcohol hand sanitizer products.
We know this because more than 400 of those schools have contacted us unsolicited for our Soapopular and Hy5 alcohol-free product—after local school officials concluded that
Alcohol hand sanitizers, while they do kill germs, are a pretty counter-intuitive product.
1. Alcohol destroys protective skin cells
2. Alcohol causes skin to become dry/irritated; increasing risk of exposure to easily-transmitted germs/viruses
3. Alcohol has no efficacy if applied to dirty/soiled hands. This is exactly why companies such as Purell advise “wash hands before applying”
4. If one is to wash hands before applying, then why would you put alcohol into a kids hands thereafter??
5. Alcohol loses its germ killing effectiveness within seconds after applying to the skin.
6. Flammable.
7. Potentially toxic.
8. Cannot be applied to skin that may have cuts/abrasions
The vast majority of non-alcohol hand sanitizer products use the exact same active ingredient that can be found in Bactine antiseptic or J&J’s Bandaid brand Foaming Antiseptic. As such, the efficacy of non-alcohol hand sanitizing products with regard to the broad spectrum of pathogens (including H1N1( is well-documented. And when considering that these products:
1. Provide extended persistency
2. Non-drying/non-irritating
3. Antiseptic
4. Non-flammable
5. Non-toxic
It’s otherwise a pretty simple decision to make when deciding what makes sense to put into our kids hands.
Jay Berkman
MGS Brands, Inc.
d/b/a MGS Soapopular